The Dark Tower (Nikolaj Arcel, 2017)

[domino harvey]

Hahaha amazing. While I'm as tired of bloated films as the next person, the world-building alone surely would need longer than eighty minutes after the credits are factored out

[The Narrator Returns]

domino has gotten his wish: it's actually ninety minutes after the credits are factored out

[domino harvey]

Variety lays out how a director unaccustomed to helming big budget films and two competing backers with authority to kill whatever they disliked resulted in the mess that bombed at all of its test screenings and resulted in a $6 million reshoot for what may be as little as five additional minutes' material

[The Narrator Returns]

Someone in the Dissolve Facebook group who saw it at a critics' screening compared it to the last Fantastic Four for the obvious reshoot and reediting seams (as well as its general quality).

[The Narrator Returns]

The actual reviews are coming in, and are not far off from that. Uproxx compared it to both the GOP health-care bill and, even more damningly, Jonah Hex.

[domino harvey]

Outside of possibly the house from the Wastelands, I recognize from the books none of the plot (or motivations, for that matter) shared in that review

[cdnchris]

Wasn't the house with the door in the second one? Man it's been a while, and I have trouble recalling much from the last three books. But yeah, nothing else in that review or even the trailer sounds familiar.

[The Narrator Returns]

The word in the other reviews is that Idris Elba is the sole highlight (with McConaughey getting the second-place trophy almost by default), and that it's an active eyesore to look at, in addition to making no sense.

[domino harvey]

Wasn't the house with the door in the second one? Man it's been a while, and I have trouble recalling much from the last three books. But yeah, nothing else in that review or even the trailer sounds familiar.

The doors are for sure in the second book, but I thought the stuff with Jake and the rose and the weirdly-shifting house was in the third book-- though you could be right, it's been a long time since I read these as well (and I'm unlikely to read 5-7 or revisit 1-4)

[Big Ben]

I believe this takes place after the books. Not that any of that helps. As if any of you needed confirmation of this I'm hearing there was massive fighting behind the scenes over vision and so forth. And test audiences responded in kind and well...yeah.

[cdnchris]

The doors are for sure in the second book, but I thought the stuff with Jake and the rose and the weirdly-shifting house was in the third book-- though you could be right, it's been a long time since I read these as well (and I'm unlikely to read 5-7 or revisit 1-4)

Actually I think you're right when I come to think of it. The rose was definitely the third.

I actually do want to read them again but it's a commitment and I feel pressed for time as it is. Not to offer too much information, but I read the last three while in the hospital and was hopped up on pain meds most of the time and don't remember a lot. So I recall reading them but don't remember anything about them. And I've been meaning to reread them ever since, but that was 12 years ago so i doubt it's happening soon.

[tenia]

Variety lays out how a director unaccustomed to helming big budget films and two competing backers with authority to kill whatever they disliked resulted in the mess that bombed at all of its test screenings and resulted in a $6 million reshoot for what may be as little as five additional minutes' material

Is there any possibility that one day, even in the far future, studios will understand how this is actually making things worse by wasting more time and money without helping in any way the final end-result ?

Oh, and I see Akiva Goldsman is again tied to a nice mess. Always in the good stuff !

[JamesF]

The setpiece of Jake moving through the "living" house to get to the door to Mid-World is definitely from The Wastelands.

Spoiler

(The second book is where Roland accidentally prevents his death while in NYC which messes up the timeline.)

No surprise this is a car crash, especially with Goldsman playing such a pivotal role behind the scenes (did no-one see A Winter's Tale not that long ago?). Let's just hope that it's not such a failure that a proper HBO-style series isn't still a worthy proposition in ten years' time. I'd love to see what someone younger and hungrier with genre cred (say, Jim Mickle, Ti West or even Richard Kelly) would do with the series without having to make concessions for a four-quadrant summer tentpole or a theatrical running time.

[The Narrator Returns]

Sony's moving ahead with the companion TV series

[mfunk9786]

Sony's moving ahead with the companion TV series

That's what this should have been from the beginning. HBO would have knocked it out of the park.

[domino harvey]

Sony's moving ahead with the companion TV series

Suuuuuure they are

[domino harvey]

Just read a spoiler for the ending to the film and it is so stupid and against the spirit of the books that it reads like parody of bad Hollywood adaptations

Spoiler

Roland kills the Man in Black and decides the Tower's now safe and adopts Jake and retires to NYC to raise him

[Big Ben]

Just read a spoiler for the ending to the film and it is so stupid and against the spirit of the books that it reads like parody of bad Hollywood adaptations

Spoiler

Roland kills the Man in Black and decides the Tower's now safe and adopts Jake and retires to NYC to raise him

Spoiler

Who knew killing Randall Flagg would only take Idris Elba. I'm apalled at this notion. Is the character even three dimensional in the film? Flagg, as awful as he is always felt like his evil was retribution against literally all of creation for being raped.

[swo17]

Let's be honest: this is the adaptation we deserve.

[domino harvey]

[knives]

Now it's a bit lower though.

[John Shade]

It made 19 million for its opening weekend.

[willoneill]

Just came back from seeing this, and it's almost perversely impressive how bad this is. I'm not even sure what it is. It's not an adaptation at all, though it certainly contains ideas from all the books. If it is a sequel, that's only vaguely hinted at in one fleeting moment. I'd love to get the impression from someone who hasn't read the books, but I'm not that sadistic. I will say this: with good material, Idris Elba could have been an amazing Gunslinger. He's better in this than the film deserves.

Just read a spoiler for the ending to the film and it is so stupid and against the spirit of the books that it reads like parody of bad Hollywood adaptations

Spoiler

Roland kills the Man in Black and decides the Tower's now safe and adopts Jake and retires to NYC to raise him

This is only half true.

Spoiler

Roland does the kill the Man in Black, but after that asks Jake to come back to Mid-World with him, because he could be useful. For what? Only Akiva Goldsman knows.

[JamesF]

I had a couple of hours to kill yesterday between festival films so got a ticket for this out of morbid curiosity. I didn't hate it as much as I expected to - if you have to compress seven books of uneven but wildly imaginative genre smash-up into a 90-minute summer tentpole, then this is pretty much exactly how you do it, and I perversely admired some of its adaptation choices. Still, the ultimate result is a rushed, messy but sporadically moderately effective Matrix rip-off that with an extra half-hour to breathe and an R-rating for extra violence/weirdness might have been halfway decent, but alas is just sort of... there.

Oh well, I'm sure it will be easy to forget it ever happened, and we can wait and hope for an HBO series further down the line.